North Dakota asks pipeline company to explain ranch purchase

September 28, 2016

Associated Press

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem is asking the developer of the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline to explain its purchase of a ranch where a protest turned violent earlier this month.

Stenehjem is giving the company 30 days to say how the land, where tribal officials said construction crews destroyed burial and cultural sites, will be used.

North Dakota law generally bars corporations from owning agricultural land unless the property is controlled by a farm family. The company must prove to the state how its purchase complies with the Depression-era anti-corporate farming law.

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